Pascual Lucas argues that taxi drivers from all over the Region of Murcia should be allowed to work at Corvera

Following the news this week that the taxi drivers of Murcia are so insistent on being granted exclusive rights to operate at the new Region of Murcia International Airport in Corvera when it opens in January 2019 that they are planning weekly strikes until this privilege is confirmed, the Mayor of Cieza has joined forces with his counterpart in San Javier in demanding that cabbies from other municipalities should also be allowed to offer their services there.

For many months José Miguel Luengo, the Mayor of San Javier, has been campaigning to ensure that at least some of the taxi drivers licensed in the municipality be allowed to work at the new infrastructure when Murcia-San Javier airport closes down to make way for Corvera on 15th January, but the support he has received this week from Pascual Lucas, the Mayor of Cieza, on Thursday may have come as a surprise even to him. The argument put forward by Sr Lucas is that Corvera airport has been paid for by “all of the inhabitants of the Region”, and that therefore it “makes no sense” for only the taxi drivers of Murcia to be allowed to work there.

Furthermore, he recalls that a similar argument was used by the regional government in the past to campaign for drivers registered in Murcia to be granted permission to offer their services at Alicante-Elche airport. In the end, Sr Lucas points out, a partial victory was won when Murcia cabbies were granted the right to work in the airport of Alicante-Elche in cases where customers had contracted their services beforehand, rather than hailing a cab at the terminal, and he expressed the hope that a similarly flexible attitude will be adopted at Corvera.

Back in San Javier, meanwhile, José Miguel Luengo maintains his argument that the drivers of the municipality should receive some kind of compensation for being deprived of airport pick-ups after providing their services for 50 years, pointing out that flights are only being transferred to a “neighbouring municipality”. At San Javier, the local drivers have always enjoyed the exclusivity which is now being demanded by those in Murcia at Corvera.

A meeting is scheduled next week between representatives of the taxi drivers of Murcia and of the regional government, and with the first of the weekly strikes in the regional capital planned for Thursday the outcome of that conversation will be eagerly awaited in various parts of the Region of Murcia.